Vietnam’s New Industrial Policy Under To Lam
Nguyen Khac Giang, author
Date of publication:
2025
Publisher:
ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute
Number of pages:
40
Code:
TRS23/25
Soft Cover
ISBN: 9789815361322
About the publication
- Vietnam’s industrial policy has passed through three phases since the adoption of Doi Moi in 1986: liberalization with ownership bias (1986–2010), failed state-led industrialization (2000s–2010), and strategic neglect (2011–24). Each phase was marked by fragmented implementation and achieved only limited progress in structural industrial transformation.
- The rise of To Lam as general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in 2024 marks a potential inflection point—namely, the introduction of Vietnam’s most comprehensive industrial policy framework to date through institutional restructuring, ownership-neutral incentives and targeted sectoral investments.
- To Lam’s strategy concentrates on eleven high-tech domains and, for the first time, recognizes the private sector as the economy’s “one most important force”. It seeks to balance attracting major foreign investors such as Samsung and Intel with cultivating domestic “champions” like Viettel, Vingroup and FPT.
- Vietnam’s new industrial toolkit emphasizes domestic instruments—such as tax reform, R&D incentives and procurement preferences—over traditional border measures, reflecting both trade commitments and lessons from past failures.
- The strategy confronts formidable constraints, including bureaucratic rent-seeking, weak human capital, energy and infrastructure gaps, persistent FDI enclave dynamics, and shrinking policy space under trade agreements.
- Success hinges on managing three interlocking tensions: reconciling opposing ideologies (socialist orientation versus market mechanisms), balancing temporal horizons (current FDI dependence versus future domestic capability) and managing geopolitical pressures (integration with global value chains versus national strategic autonomy).
Contents
-
Vietnam’s New Industrial Policy Under To Lam
[Whole Publication, ISBN: 9789815361339], by Nguyen Khac Giang, author
